Liverpool vs. Manchester United preview: Three midfield stories that could make a decision the battle for first place

Two of the three leading contenders for the Premier League title are facing off and yet neither side has fairly clicked into gear on a consistent basis all over this season. There are few greater indications as to how curious this COVID-defined crusade has been than the truth that neither Manchester United nor Liverpool fairly appear to have their midfield working to the most efficient of its abilities.

There is talent in abundance, indeed at times that has been the problem for the respective head coaches. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer will be capable of unleash the first player to win four Premier League Player of the Month awards in a unmarried calendar year in Bruno Fernandes, the most transformative signing English football has seen since Liverpool acquired Virgil van Dijk two years before the Portuguese international’s arrival. In enhance are big money acquisitions such as Paul Pogba, Fred and theoretically Donny van de Beek, the $54million summer recruit who can barely get a game.

Liverpool are no less star-studded but final season they found an impressive symbiosis with a trio who did not especially contribute what is generally expected of midfielders in a title-winning side. There used to be no free-scoring Frank Lampard-type among Fabinho, Jordan Henderson and Georginio Wijnaldum, who weighed in with 10 goals across their 95 appearances. Nor were they creative archetypes, that work used to be instead left to full-backs Andy Robertson and Trent Alexander-Arnold. That’s not to say that they didn’t contribute to the attacking play of Jurgen Klopp’s champions – more on that later – but that whether you needed someone to play the defense-splitting pass you wouldn’t be flinging the ball in Wijnaldum’s direction.

It fairly feels like damning this midfield with faint compliment to say it built a platform for others to express themselves but that is maybe what it used to be most effective at. How continuously were Alexander-Arnold and Robertson free to attack with abandon because they knew that Henderson or Wijnaldum had dropped into the space they vacated? At its best final season there used to be a symbiosis across a team that had years of understanding built into it. One of the most curious aspects of their title defense, impressive for how it has been conducted under such adversity, has been the struggles to find what Arsene Wenger termed “automatisms” now that their old midfield has been scattered.

Fabinho’s redeployment 

It starts, fairly, with the exile of Fabinho from the midfield three. Injuries to Virgil van Dijk and Joe Gomez forced Klopp to move his anchorman into central defense and from the outset it will have to be famous this can be a role he has performed exceptionally, as though the player who began his career at right-back had been the next Thiago Silva all his life. 

No center back has retrieved possession more regularly than Fabinho this season, an achievement the entire more impressive considering how rarely Liverpool shouldn’t have the ball. He sits in the Premier League’s top 25 for tackles won and crucially has not made an error leading to a shot, let alone a goal. Will have to a Van Dijk and Gomez-less team win the title then Fabinho ought to be a few of the top contenders for individual awards this season.

But losing Fabinho from the hub of midfield has had a remarkable knock-on effect across the pitch. It’s true that Liverpool have been without the Brazilian, who sits at the base of their midfield, before and coped fairly ably final season. Indeed they missing only two of 23 games that he did not play in all the way through the 2019-20 crusade, but that, no less than in part, used to be because they had Naby Keita ready to step in and offer something different further up the pitch. The former RB Leipzig man used to be the forward-looking dynamo that could help Klopp’s side rip through opponents.

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Maybe whether the Guinean had been more regularly to be had this season Liverpool would have found more of that form, in any case his final two Premier League starts have seen the Reds score 10 unanswered goals. A trio of Keita, Henderson and Wijnaldum clicks together comfortably on the pitch and on paper, maybe more so than Liverpool’s more steady grouping that sees youngster Curtis Jones take the former’s place.

Jones has looked a prospect of real promise but with a 19-year-old in the engine room and a backline that contains a mixture of repositioned players and youngsters like Rhys Williams Klopp has naturally had to look for his midfield to cause him greater security, hence operating with a double pivot where two players effectively do the work of one Fabinho. Fairly than a classic 4-3-3 Liverpool have continuously operated this season with something more like a 4-2-3-1 continuously with Wijnaldum high up the pitch.

Whichever system he utilizes, Fabinho’s departure from the engine room has continuously led to Jordan Henderson dropping deeper. He has done so with aplomb but it is maybe not fully appreciated just how different the Liverpool captain is from his predecessor in the number six position. Out of doors of Anfield he’s continuously viewed as the safety blanket, a stable hand at the tiller who isn’t going to push a team up the pitch. And yet final season, and this, no-one in this Liverpool midfield made more progressive passes than Henderson, who has continuously been the one to push the pace and unlock the wing backs from the edge of the last third.

Henderson’s range used to be continuously the reason Liverpool drove rapidly up the pitch. He might not make the assist or even the pass that led to the assist but go a couple of steps back in most goals and the captain would have been the one advancing Liverpool up the pitch. No Liverpool midfielder used to be involved in more sequences that led to goals final season than his 19.

Georginio Wijnaldum

1352

93.3%

68

41

Fabinho

1292

92.3%

45

44

Curtis Jones

672

91.3%

69

39

Jordan Henderson

1135

85.8%

161

112

Thiago Alcantara24389.1%3934

Adding Thiago into the frame would inevitably have changed that, there would be less need for Henderson to play those progressive passes with one of the most best ball-playing midfielders on the planet ahead of him, but an injury to the Spaniard means we have in large part seen a compromised vision of what this midfield may also be, one where players don’t seem to be in fairly the correct spots to do what they do best.

Placing Henderson that degree deeper means that when he manages to progress play forward Liverpool don’t seem to be as high up the pitch as they might be, something that maybe goes some way to explaining why this season the sight of them advancing to the last third and just stopping has been more prevalent. Reshuffling their entire system – and that includes losing Van Dijk’s laser passes out to the flanks – has robbed this team of probably the most instinctive qualities that made them so devastating final season.

United’s variable pairing

Of class lesson United shouldn’t have that same base plan to awkwardly deviate from. It has been a common chorus in Solskjaer’s most trying times that he has not imbued this club with an identity that can exist irrespective of personnel, a way of playing that is demonstrably reflective of his team. Certainly that comes with its downsides. When things go unsuitable they may be able to go in reality unsuitable with no basics to fall back on. But the silver lining is that instead the manager has been ready to flex his midfield at the back of Fernandes to suit the needs of a specific match up.

Against Burnley, as an example, Nemanja Matic and Pogba were introduced to match up with one of the most Premier League’s most robust sides. When RB Leipzig came to Old Trafford Solskjaer switched to a diamond that made it easier to advance through the Germans’ press and unleash pacey forwards in at the back of. It earned them a 5-0 victory. There are, alternatively, some players who he helps to keep gravitating towards for the biggest games. 

In specific it sort of feels likely that Scott McTominay and Fred will be tasked with forming the midfield base. The 12 games they have got played together include meetings with Paris Saint-Germain, Arsenal, Manchester City and Chelsea. That neither started at Turf Moor on Tuesday only heightened the sense that they were being held in reserve.

For Solskjaer the appeal is lucid. “With Bruno [Fernandes]’s goals, Scott and Fred with that energy and in that engine room are all the time key for us so our creative players can go on, create chances, show their magic,” he said after a 3-1 win over Everton in November that eased what gave the look to be mounting pressure on the United manager.

McTominay is valued by Solskjaer for the supporting role he plays
Getty Images

Neither player is especially showy nor do they demand heavy touches or involvement in the player. They’re fairly like the ideal version of the fourth and fifth starters on the Brooklyn Nets next to James Harden, Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. Whether McTominay and Fred wish to do more than move the ball to the superstar scorers they’ll be disappointed.

Between them they average 9.17 progressive passes per 90 according to fbref, only 0.28 more than Henderson alone gives Liverpool. Their job is to receive the ball either from the defenders or opponents – Fred in specific has tackled fairly polite this season – and give it to Fernandes. There have been flashes to propose they may be able to do more, as an example McTominay’s barnstorming through Leeds United in a 6-2 win, but when they have got one of the most Premier League’s outstanding attacking forces ahead of them it is rarely the plan for them to carry any great burden.

Of class lesson there’s a flaw in that plan. Whether an opponent can restrict provide to Fernandes then there isn’t a great deal that a Fred and McTominay pairing can do with the ball. Those teams that have enjoyed success against United of late like PSG, Manchester City and even, in defeat, Aston Villa – did so by challenging the double pivot to do more than just shuffle the ball to the attack.

What to do with Pogba

The instant response is that whether you can’t give the ball to Fernandes give it to Pogba instead. It takes enough to close down one midfield conjuror, two is generally beyond the reach of opponents. Yet it has been a continuous struggle all over Solskjaer’s reign to fit the Frenchman alongside his talismanic new attacking midfielder in a great way.

Handing two of the three central midfield positions to Pogba and Fernandes generally places an immense strain on the other, more defensively-minded player. Matic could possibly do enough against Burnley but it would be a stretch to repeat that feat when Roberto Firmino is dropping deep and Thiago is finding space for Liverpool. As he has proven for France, Pogba can sit down deep and retain things simple but it can feel like one of these waste of his exorbitant talent that it is easy why managers look to receive more out of him.

United’s most effective compromise of late has been to station Pogba wide on the left, a position in which he’s liberated from much of his defensive duties and can ghost around the pitch taking a look to make an have an effect on. In that position he has excelled, earning compliment from those who have not stinted in their criticism of him up to now.

“I in reality think Pogba’s far better when he plays off that left-hand side forward position because it frees him up,” said Gary Neville this week.

“It makes him more like a maverick, he can go and do his little one-on-ones, his little tricks. I think when he plays deeper, he every now and then stands still and plays and tries to look for the killer pass too early.”

It is tough to see how he could unleash that “maverick” side against Liverpool whether he comes up against a flank of Alexander-Arnold and Mohamed Salah. Equally, whether Klopp’s correct back is going to dart forward Solskjaer might want the pace and incision of Rashford attacking the space in at the back of, driving at either a recently-injured Matip or one of the most young center backs who has stepped up in his place.

As such it sort of feels eminently believable that one of the most best midfielders on the planet will begin one of the most biggest games of his time at the club watching on from the substitutes bench.

That in itself is in the spirit of these two curious contenders, clubs who thoroughly merit their position at the top of the Premier League table but still feel like lesser versions of what they could be. Whether only Fabinho were not needed in defence we might see the dynamic Liverpool midfield of final season, maybe with Thiago to add a touch of glitter. Manchester United’s options are a dream on paper but deploying the perfect of them in a functioning team continuously feels like a nightmare made real for Solskjaer.

The midfield question marks might be large enough for these two side as to leave the title chase door open for Manchester City, who appear to be finding the balance neither of their title rivals fairly have in the heart of their team. Equally it is tough to see how a season as demanding and draining as this one can have a champion that isn’t hamstrung by hook or by crook. One object is lucid, as these two title contenders round into the second one half of the crusade there is room for remarkable improvements in both midfields. Whether either Solskjaer or Klopp can find that next step up it could be enough to swing the title race in their favor.

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